


delicate in every way but one

by dragonsoftheeast



Series: Glory and Gore [1]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Season 3 compliant, This has been brewing in my head for a while, that's about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22532383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsoftheeast/pseuds/dragonsoftheeast
Summary: She had tried to summon the strength, the strength enough to be a Viking. She had failed. Two raids in, and she had come out with nothing more than a wounded face and a wounded soul.She must have used up all her strength, struggling to stay still in her chains. Nothing was left over to be a Viking with.
Relationships: Bjorn/Thorunn (Vikings)
Series: Glory and Gore [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621180
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	delicate in every way but one

In the end, Thorunn makes it a week. 

She doesn’t regret it. Leaving. Kattegat has been her life, whether her choice or not, since she was born. 

As a slave, she learned to find freedom in whatever she could. When she was freed, she found freedom in the shield-wall. In the roar of battle and the feeling of a sword and a shield in her hands. And even that seemed doomed to be cut short.

But now she knows. Being able to walk away is the true freedom, the one that she has never known.

She can still see Kattegat, from here in the mountains. It has grown. When she was a child, first owned by Earl Haraldson, the town was barely a speck on the horizon. Now, the town all but fills up the valley.

Perhaps one day it will grow large enough to swallow her whole. Perhaps she will never truly escape it.

She thinks of her daughter, still down there. Is she crying for her mother? Will Siggy know freedom?

Siggy is Bjorn’s daughter, she reassures herself. Ragnar’s granddaughter. Lagertha’s granddaughter. They would never allow her to become a slave. They would take care of her.

Siggy will grow up in the luxury of Kattegat’s royalty. She will wear rich furs, like Thorunn wears now, and be completely used to them. She will wear gold and silver and stand tall. She will stand beside her family and know her place.

But what will she become?

Her greatest desire was that Siggy become Viking. That her daughter would ascend to greatness, and that people would say of her,  _ who would have thought that she is the daughter of a slave? _

It was unfair of her, she supposes, to rely on her daughter to give her glory. And it was foolish of her to believe that they would ever attribute a daughter’s ferocity to her mother.

She thinks of Aslaug, mother to a deformed son. She thinks of Siggy, daughter to a deformed mother.

Aslaug is a brave woman, for doing what she does. Her will to keep her son alive and loved is the strength that can only come from Frigg. 

Her daughter does not deserve to summon that sort of strength from birth, she thought. Bjorn does not deserve to summon that strength for her either. She does not deserve to be a burden of affection. That is what she thought.

She had tried to summon the strength, the strength enough to be a Viking. She had failed. Two raids in, and she had come out with nothing more than a wounded face and a wounded soul.

She must have used up all her strength, struggling to stay still in her chains. Nothing was left over to be a Viking with.

Aslaug’s words come back to her.

_ What does it matter what you call someone? Whether she is Viking or not Viking is not important. What is important is that you love and nurture her. For if you are fortunate, she will grow up healthy, and give you grandchildren to be proud of. _

What does she fear for her daughter?

That she will grow to be a slave? That she will grow to hate her mother? That she will grow to be weak?

That she will not grow up at all.

Perhaps her daughter does not deserve it. Perhaps Bjorn does not deserve it. But what does she, Thorunn, deserve?

When she was a slave, all she wanted was her freedom. And she has it. The freedom to leave. And now she has the freedom to come back.

She turns around and walks back down the mountain.

She never tells Bjorn.

* * *

When she re-enters Kattegat, no one pays any attention to her. That is not unusual. As a slave, she had never expected to be noticed, and never wanted to be.

Even now, wearing the trappings of the people who had once owned her, she shrinks into familiar anonymity. She walks past the goats and pigs and all the animals she once fed slops. She walks past the small courtyard where she danced with the other slaves.

Kattegat is filled with reminders of her slavery. But so is her body. If she cannot escape them, then she will own them.

She walks to the Great Hall, past Aslaug’s gaping sons. She doubts that they remember her as part of their mother’s household. They only remember her as their oldest brother’s wife.

Aslaug is seated on her throne, the hearth fire setting flickering light over her face.

“What are you doing here?” Aslaug’s eyes stare deeply, and looks queenly, despite Ivar suckling at her breast.

“I’ve come back for my daughter,” she says.

“And will you stay?”

“Yes.”

Aslaug reaches up with her free hand and removes the veil. Her fingers touch the scarred side of her face. She tilts her head to the side to another baby wrapped in a blanket.

Thorunn holds Siggy in her arms, and weeps.

* * *

“Do you think of your daughter?” His father asks as they stare out onto the open water.

With his father on his left and his mother on his right, he can pretend that nothing has changed from his childhood. His father is not an earl. His mother is not one, either. They are sailing on their way to the east, as they have always done, on behalf of Earl Haraldson.

The only one missing is Gyda.

“Of course I do.”

Sometimes he thinks of what she’d become, if she had not died. Would she have become a shield-maiden, like their mother? Perhaps she would have adapted well to the role of a princess.

He imagines her in the hall of Earl Sigvard, and shudders. Perhaps she would have grown strong there, but she did not deserve to.

He looks at his parents again, separated by the mast.

What would she have chosen? Their father or their mother? Would they have separated by their parents, as they were by death?

“Do you want sons?” his father asks, raising an eyebrow. There is another question, in those brows. What would you do for those sons?

“Of course I do.”

If he has another daughter, he thinks that he will name her Gyda.

* * *

When Bjorn returns, he returns to a wife and daughter.

Thorunn stands tall, their daughter in her arms. More tellingly, her face is uncovered, her hair braided back to expose the full length of the scar.

“Hello, Bjorn,” she says, smiling. The smile is somewhat lopsided, her scar pulling at the corner of her lips.

“Thorunn,” he replies, embracing her, half expecting to be gently pushed again once again. He is surprised to feel her reciprocate. 

Siggy stares with wide blue eyes. There is no mistaking them. Bjorn’s eyes, Ragnar’s eyes. No one can dispute that. Wispy blonde hair halos around her face. One cannot tell who she will take after quite yet. He himself did not resemble either of his parents especially.

“Hello, Siggy.”

When he saw his father after ten years, he’d told them that they were tied together by memory and blood. All he and Siggy have is blood. 

Does she recognize him? 

She clings to his fingers, and he smiles, because it is a start.

All around them, men are rushing into the embraces of their wives and children. It is a tidal wave, after such a long separation.

Bjorn remembers, in the long-lost age of the eastern raids, that the separations were several moons long, at the most. Now, with the lengthening of Ragnar’s reach, they are gone for at least half the year.

Too long.

Perhaps, when Siggy is old enough, they will go together. Fight together, as a family.

But for now, he can go home.

“Do you want to hold her?” Thorunn asks, and he accepts his daughter with arms he is not sure will be strong enough.

They walk through the streets. He does not notice the man lifting his chest of spoils and walking behind them.

Now that the anxiety of meeting his daughter is fading, he now remembers how exhausted he is. He wants to lie down in a place that feels firm beneath his feet.

As soon as they enter their home, the man drops the chest with a heavy thud and scampers away. Thorunn sets Siggy down into a cradle and begins to take off her clothes.

“What are you doing?” He asks, as she throws her shirt in his face.

“Do you not want me?” she asks, straddling him.

He should be asking that her, he thinks. He has wanted her and she had denied him. He had expected cold, after the months when she was first wounded, but no longer. The heat of her body is calling, familiar, yet softer than he has come to expect.

He answers with a kiss, following the length of her scar, down from her forehead to her lips. The texture is different, he finds, but no less lovely.

Guilty, he thinks of Torvi, but he pushes her aside. Why should he be thinking of another woman when his wife is here?

“I’m sorry,” he says, kissing along her shoulder. “I won’t sleep with her again.”

“Good,” she says, and he feels a little thrill at the word. They both fumble at the edge of his shirt.

When he takes off his clothes, he feels her eyes on his new scars, two blooms along his chest. There are two on the back to match.

“I know,” he says. “Hardly Bjorn Ironside.”

He feels her lips brush against each one.

“You are a warrior,” she says. “It’s to be expected. And you won.”

“Only because of Ragnar’s plan,” he says, touching her scar yet again. He is fascinated with it, now that it is completely healed. 

“You remain Bjorn Ironside,” she says. “You live to fight another day. The gods are protecting you.”

“Maybe,” he says, and reaches up to cup her face. He doesn’t want to say anything else.

* * *

Once they are done, she lies back on the furs, and he sits up, inspecting the room with a little more discernment.

Their home is too empty, he thinks. It reminds him of his childhood home, on the farm. As the son of a king, he has gotten used to furs and tapestries, gold and silver, intricately carved wood.

Thorunn is used to none of these. 

He knows because of how strangely furs drape around her shoulders. How hesitant her hands are when she touches precious metals. 

There is only their bed, and a small cradle, which is carved with the head of a serpent.

“This is new,” he says, running a finger along the wood. It is far more intricate than anything he thinks that Thorunn has ever owned. 

“It was a gift,” she says, “from Aslaug.”

Siggy fusses, reaching a small hand through the blanket. That, he assumes, is another gift, because Thorunn cannot weave. She has never been taught how, and never had free access to a loom. Perhaps she can be taught, now that she is a free woman, but he does not think she has any desire to do so.

“I did not know you were such good friends with her.”

He has no idea what her relationship with his step-mother- and her former mistress- is like. In fact, he has no idea what women are like around each other.

She hums softly. “She helped me take care of Siggy.”

That is explanation enough.

“Show me what you’ve brought back from Paris,” she says.

“Maybe I did not bring anything back.”

She sits up straight, slapping his shoulder. “Surely there is something in that chest.” 

He laughs, and pushes himself up off the bed. 

“What is that thing on the top?” She asks.

“It is a lock,” he says, lifting it up to show her. “I cut it off of the door myself.”

He sets the board aside, and pulls out a chain of gold, draping it over her neck. She shivers at the cold of the metal, and the pendant hangs heavily between her breasts.

“This is suitable,” she says, lying back. “Show me more.”

He pulls out his true treasure.

“Thorunn, you must look at this.” He flattens the map onto the bed. “It is a map of distant lands. Along here, a road. And a sea.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means that there are whole new lands to discover.” He points to the sea. “I found this map in Paris. So surely that means that we may find these lands beyond Frankia. All we need are the ships to get there.”

“You want to sail there?”

“Yes, we could go. Start raiding there, as we did England.” He begins to poke at the map, more for emphasis than to point out any particular landmark. “Frankia was prosperous enough. You should have seen it. A city carved of marble, riches overflowing.”

“So what? There are further riches past there?”

“Why not? My father dreamed of sailing west. No one imagined it to happen. Now look at what we have done.” He points at the center of the map. “Look. At the center, there is a city. It is called Rome.”

“And you want to go there?”

“It is the center of the map, it must be important.” He looks at her, runs his tongue over his teeth. “Would you sail with me?”

She looks down at the map, at the unexplored sea. She has always desired freedom, this wife of his. He may not understand much about women, but this he knows.

“Of course,” she says, with a new glint of wanderlust in her eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the start of a series of one-shots. The main source of divergence is Thorunn staying. We'll see where it goes from there.


End file.
